Common to both ancient Hebrew and Christianliterature, prophetic writing hailed the end of the world and the triumph of good over evil. In the Old TestamentDaniel had apocalyptic visions, but in the New Testament the apocalypse is most closely associated with the Revelation ascribed to St John the Evangelist. It was written at a time when Christians were suffering persecution, possibly in the 1st century AD, and is difficult to read today as many of the images are no longer clearly understood. The significance of certain numbers, especially seven, is likewise obscure, but some allusions may be to Roman emperors. In the Revelation angels speak, mighty forces clash, and saints are rewarded; God faces huge opposition but is finally triumphant.

Some passages from the Revelation are well known: God as the Alpha and Omega; the apocalyptic beasts surrounding the throne of heaven, resembling a lion, a calf, a man and a flying eagle, which were adopted as the attributes of the Evangelists; and the visions of God, of the Lamb and of the Seven Seals. Each seal opened to reveal a vision. The first four seals disclosed the four horsemen of the apocalypse: a conquerer with bow and crown, on a white horse; War, the destroyer with the sword, on a red horse; Hunger, with a pair of scales, on a black horse; and Death, the pale horseman, with Hell on his heels.

The fifth seal revealed the souls of those slain for preaching the word of God, who were given white robes. The sixth seal brought a great earthquake, when the sun blackened, the moon became blood red, the stars fell, heaven departed and men hid in the mountains from this day of wrath. An angel anointed the “seal of the living God” on the foreheads of his servants, while four angels held back the four winds of the earth. Silence filled heaven when the seventh seal was opened, until an angel threw a censer to earth and caused thunder, lightning and earthquakes. The call of seven trumpets released further revelations, of the wonders of heaven, of the Devil and his angels cast out of Heaven, and of the ‘whore of Babylon’, the scarlet woman, mother of harlots and of the earth’s abominations. The last decisive battle was fought at Armageddon before the Day of Judgment.

It has been revealed that Mr. Sinister was transformed into what he is by Apocalypse and that Nathan Summers, a.k.a. Cable was "built" by Mr. Sinister to kill his master. Another being that calls Apocalypse master is Ozymandias, an ex-vizier of the Pharaoh Rama-Tut. He is now a being of stone that marks all of humanity's history to Apocalypse.

Also, it is known that in the future, Apocalypse ruled with iron hand, and that is the reason that Cable is on our era: to stop his dark future from coming. Redd and Slym, a.k.a. Jean Grey and Scott Summers, with young Cable, have killed Apocalypse in the future, but everyone knows that he keeps returning, to cause havoc and pillage the world as he sees fit.

A side note of a personal nature, Apocalypse was always my favorite villian in the X-Men Universe. He was always coming back for more, always trying another plan for world domination, and if carried out, his plan for the world would make for an interesting spinoff comic series. Also, my favorite verbatim is taken from one of Apocalypse's wise wise dialogue with Mr. Sinister; "I am the rock of the eternal shore. Crash against me . . . and be broken."

The Apocalypse sword is significant because, unlike all but one other weapon in the game (a two-slotted 'scimitar' for Cid Highwind, thanks to Eidolos for the info), it has triple growth. And unlike every other weapon its growth total exceeds 8x, i.e., 3 slots with triple growth is 9x AP. The next best for total AP earning is actually a four-slotted double growth weapon, or an eight-slotted single growth weapon.

Apocalypse was the third and final Magic: The Gathering expansion set for the Invasion block. It consisted of 143 cards, and the expansion set symbol was a large mask, substantially larger than the one use for Mercadian Masques, though some may see it more as a helmet. The set continued the use of the Black/Silver/Gold symbols to denote rarity, and all the cards were available in rare foil versions randomly inserted into booster packs.

A number of play mechanics from Invasion and Planeshift were continued in Apocalypse. "Kicker", the ability that lets you pay additional mana when casting a spell to increase its effect, was common in the set - including a set of creatures known as "Volvers", which each had kicker from both of the enemy colors of that card. In fact, a lot of the set was oriented around enemy colors teaming up, as there were both enemy color split cards, and enemy color "pain lands", lands that produced mana of two enemy colors while doing 1 damage when used.

An interesting note is that the card "Spiritmonger" in this set was created by a fan, having won the Create a Creature contest that Wizards of the Coast ran in 1999. Eleven cards were chosen as finalists, and the selection of the winning card was done via voting on the WotC web site. The Spiritmonger (originally "Spirit Monger") was the winner of the vote.

Note that in the card list, the "split" cards (two small cards on one large card) are listed with a slash ('/') in the middle, with the name of the card of that specific color listed afterwards in parenthesis.

Apocalypse can be described as Jokulhaups with an attitude. A really bad attitude.

There is no subtle effect here - instead, Apocalypse has an effect befitting the name - it wipes the board clean. Everything goes, lands, creatures, artifacts, enchantments, all gone, and not just destroyed, but completely removed from the game, thus almost impossible to bring back.

This card could come in useful as a version of a "reset button", like Nevinyrral's Disk. But there's a small side effect that isn't so small. You have to discard your entire hand when the spell resolves. This means that after you play it, you're sitting there, nothing on the board, and nothing in hand. You are at the whims of fortune, all depending on what you draw.

Now, this may not be the most horrible thing, depending on the situation. When you're staring down a few large critters on your opponent's side, this could be welcome. And if you're able to play it when your opponent has no cards in hand either, it definately can equalize the game again, forcing both people to play from the card-less position. But with a well designed deck, you'll never include cards to help you only in dire situations - you want your cards to be useful all the time.

So, how to work such a destructive card into a deck? You need to remember that all cards IN PLAY are removed from the game. Creatures in your graveyard aren't removed. Nor are creatures that have been removed from the game by some other effect, whether it is a spell like Oubliette or Parallax Wave, or by an inherent ability such as phasing. Those creatures aren't in play to be removed, and even ones held out by effects such as Parallax Wave are returned just after the Apocalypse goes off.

If you can manage to use an Apocalypse when you've got creatures temporarily out of play, your opponent will be totally defenseless for a short time - perhaps longer if they have a hard time getting land. Your creatures can return to play, and find themselves with an easy time beating on your opponent. With the powerful effect of Apocalypse, it can be better than Nevinyrral's Disk or Wrath of God in creating such a situation. You have to make it count, though, with the cost in discarding your hand.

This works really well against decks that live on manipulating their graveyard, as everything that goes out of the game is gone, unrecoverable. Creatures disappear, unable to be brought back, and even decks that love to use recycling cards like Gaea's Blessing can't revive those lost resources.

Apocalypse offers an interesting deck possibility, one that requires careful balance when building, but can be quite rewarding.

A short play

The stage is in darkness. A blinding white light is shone into the audience, then swung round onto the stage to spot a man, dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt, marked JC. He smiles. Behind him stand two more men, one with a plain white T-shirt, one with a red.

JC: Greetings, humanity, and welcome to today's main attraction – the Apocalypse. I'd like this to be an orderly process, so when I call your name, if I identify you as a sheep, please line up behind Raphael here (he indicates the man in white who walks down to the front right of the stage) and goats, take your place behind Gabriel (the man in red walks front and left)

Pause.

JC: calling offstage Okay, Michael, we're ready for the book. Pause. WHAT?Pause. You have got to be kidding me. For goodness sake! Who in heaven's name persuaded Dad to go with Windows? Pause. I see. Well, I shall just have to have a word or two with Lucifer when I see him next.

One of a numerous class of writings proceeding from Jewish authors between 250 b. c. and 150 a. d., and designed to propagate the Jewish faith or to cheer the hearts of the Jewish people with the promise of deliverance and glory; or proceeding from Christian authors of the opening centuries and designed to portray the future.